ARMY OF THE DEAD
ARMY OF THE DEAD I Netflix bets big on Zack Snyder’s zombie-heist movie.
We’ve got three words: Zombie. Heist. Movie.
Ask the average Total Film reader what their favourite Zack Snyder film is and 2004’s punchy Dawn Of The Dead remake will almost certainly be in contention. So it’s promising news that – following a divisive foray into the DCEU – Snyder is putting a new spin on a big-screen staple for Army Of The Dead. “It’s very much a genre deconstruction in the sense that I’m constantly trying to subvert the tropes,” Snyder tells Teasers. “It’s really fun and rewarding and really cool.”
A Netflix original, Army Of The Dead follows Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward and a diverse squad of mercs who are hired to pull off the heist of a lifetime in a Las Vegas casino. The teeny tiny catch: Sin City has been quarantined for years as a result of a plague originating in Area 51. Danny Ocean and co. had it easy in comparison.
Amusingly, Snyder describes his latest gargantuan action blockbuster as “my small movie”; not in scale, you understand, but in sensibility. “I’ve tried to get at it in a superintimate, personal way. It’s not made by committee,” says Snyder, which should be welcome words following the Justice League farrago. For one, the film goes deep on the complicated relationship between Scott and his daughter Kate, played by Ella Purnell. “It’s definitely a movie that’s incredibly personal and singular.”
Personal, singular… and an opportunity to get back to brainbashing basics. Filmed on location in Atlantic City, Snyder has dialled down the stylised comic-book aesthetic he’s deployed to a lesser or greater extent on everything from 300, even filming with digital cameras for the first time. But the biggest way in which Snyder is
‘I’VE TRIED TO GET AT IT IN A SUPER-INTIMATE, PERSONAL WAY’ ZACK SNYDER
innovating within the confines of the well-explored zombie genre, is with the undead themselves, which come in various shapes, sizes and degrees of intelligence.
“From the first conceptualising of the movie, they were going to be these evolved zombies,” Snyder teases. Describing his zombies as “semiconscious”, the goal is to make us sympathise with the undead like never before. “We treat them kind of like wolves, sort of like a dog. They’re not necessarily fully realised and talk or anything. But they can organise.” Production hasn’t gone quite as smoothly as hoped. Late last year disgraced comedian Chris D’Elia was replaced by Star Trek Discovery’s Tig Notaro during reshoots, and a real-life plague hasn’t made things any easier. But Netflix clearly has confidence in what Snyder has cooked up – a live-action prequel film starring Game Of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel wrapped filming in December, and animated series Lost Vegas will explore the origins of the zombie outbreak. Goodbye DCEU, hello AotDCU. JF
ETA | SPRING / ARMY OF THE DEAD LAUNCHES ON NETFLIX LATER THIS YEAR.